Today on Stateside, an overview of the Michigan state legislature's most recent budget proposal, which would fund roads by borrowing against the state's teacher pension plan. Plus, a new study from the University of Michigan could help policymakers target resources to the Michigan counties hit hardest by the opioid crisis.

Stateside's conversation with reporter, Tracy Samilton on the proposed natural gas plant in Rives Township north of Jackson

Residents are trying to stop a Michigan energy company from building a massive gas plant in Rives Township, a rural area north of Jackson known for its horse farms.

Residents packed a planning commission meeting on Monday. They asked the commission to immediately recommend zoning ordinance changes to the township board to keep Novi Energy from building a 1,800 MW plant.

An official says construction on a nearly $1 billion natural gas power plant in southwestern Michigan probably has been pushed back to next year.

Michael DuBois, vice president of project development for Buffalo Grove, Illinois-based Indeck Energy Services, told the South Bend Tribune that the company continues to work on financing for the plant in Niles. He says they're "optimistic" about lining up investors.

Stateside's conversation with Daniel Raimi, author of “The Fracking Debate: The Risks, Benefits, and Uncertainties of the Shale Revolution.”

Michigan has used methods of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for decades. The national debate over the use of fracking began only ten to fifteen years ago when companies began drilling down and across.

Now companies can drill deposits one to three miles wide.

Author and University of Michigan Professor Daniel Raimi discusses the nuances and misconceptions of fracking in his new book “The Fracking Debate: The Risks, Benefits, and Uncertainties of the Shale Revolution.”

The utility wants to replace three retiring coal-fired power plants with the new natural gas plant in St. Clair County. The three aging coal plants represent roughly 20% of DTE’s power capacity. The plants are scheduled to shut down over the next five years.

The Lansing Board of Water and Light meets Tuesday to vote on issuing bonds for a new natural gas plant, but opponents plan to make a last-ditch effort to change the minds of board members.

The city-owned utility held public meetings before choosing a natural gas plant to replace two coal-burning plants. "But that was several years ago," says Rebecca Payne with the Lansing Environmental Action Team. "Things on the energy market are changing overnight."

The Lansing Board of Water and Light Monday announced plans for a new natural gas power plant. The $500 million project will break ground a year from now and come online in the first quarter of 2021.

Lansing Board of Water and Light General Manager Dick Peffley says an older, dirtier, less efficient coal-powered plant is scheduled to be retired in 2020. Retiring the coal plant and building a cleaner, new natural gas plant is part of the utility’s plan to generate 30 percent of its electricity from cleaner energy sources by 2020. Peffley says they’re on schedule to hit that mark.

DTE Energy wants to replace three old coal plants with a huge new natural gas burning one. The company expects to break ground in 2019, DTE announced today. That's if it can convince the state that there is a need for the new plant, and that natural gas is the best way to fill it.

Trevor Lauer, DTE Electric's president and chief operating officer, says the plant will be capable of producing 1,100 megawatts. That's enough to power 850,000 homes.

The natural gas industry tells us that using natural gas is environmentally friendly. The industry says natural gas has fewer impurities than coal, and tells us its combustion yields mostly carbon dioxide and water vapor, so there’s less pollution.

But the main ingredient of natural gas is methane. And methane is one of the biggest contributors to climate change.

That’s why University of Michigan public policy assistant professor Catherine Hausman said we need to be concerned about what happens to the environment when methane leaks.

There's been a lot of concern expressed about Enbridge's oil and natural gas liquids pipelines running under Lake Michigan at the Straits of Mackinac.

But Keith Matheny of the Detroit Free Press reports that an oil spill contingency specialist with the U.S. Coast Guard is more worried about the above-ground section of Line 5 running across the Upper Peninsula.

LANSING, Mich. (AP) - Experts say that with at least nine coal plants in Michigan slated to shut down in the next 10 months, natural gas is the likely replacement as the primary source for generating energy. But they are not predicting a large increase in natural gas production in the state. Instead, they say there likely will be more pipelines and other infrastructure built to import more natural gas from nearby Ohio and Pennsylvania.

A new report released by the Graham Sustainability Institute looks at Michigan's options for regulating hydraulic fracturing of natural gas in Michigan.

The report says current regulations are written for smaller wells drilled to a depth of 800 to 2,000 feet, using about 50,000 gallons of water each. But high-volume fracking, using wells drilled as deep as 10,000 feet, could take off in Michigan if economic conditions become favorable for it. There are currently only 13 high-volume wells in Michigan, compared to 12,000 conventional shallow wells.

New pipelines are good for energy companies, but they often disturb private property. The Nexus pipeline would run 250 miles from gas wells in southeast Ohio to Michigan and Canada. Julie Grant reports it’s drawing opposition from landowners concerned about their safety and property rights.

Residents of northern Michigan got a surprise last summer. They found out some drilling for oil and gas can be done confidentially. That unnerved some people in Emmet County, who now want their local government to do something about it.

Plans for a new natural gas pipeline through parts of southeastern Michigan face a lot of local opposition.

The ET Rover Pipeline would snake its way through more than a half dozen counties, from the Ohio border to Sarnia, Ontario. It’s part of a planned 800-mile pipeline that will stretch from Pennsylvania and West Virginia through Ohio to Michigan.

This week, a Cheboygan District Court Judge ruled that Chesapeake Energy will go to trial for alleged fraud.

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette has accused the Oklahoma-based energy company of swindling landowners in northern Michigan.

Peter Payette is with our partners at Interlochen Public Radio and he has been covering this story.

How did all of this start?

Around May of 2010, the state auctioned off the right to drill for oil and gas on public land.

"And that auction saw prices that were astronomical. The state in one day raised as much money from the sale of oil and gas rights as it had raised in its entire history," Payette says. "And that's because out-of-state companies believed that by using these newer methods of horizontal hydraulic fracturing that they could make a lot of money by drilling deep down in the ground and taking out natural gas."

These companies went out to private landowners that summer and asked to explore their properties for oil and gas. The landowners signed leases. "And those promised what is called a 'order of payment' and in many cases the landowners did not receive payment and may say they were cheated and are owed money," Payette says.

State environmental regulators will put the finishing touches on new rules regarding “fracking” now that public hearings have wrapped up. They expect to have the new rules adopted by the end of the year, but the state’s rules may not be the final word on the controversial drilling process

“Fracking” is a drilling method that pushes water and chemicals into wells to force out oil and gas deposits.